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CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

nytimes.com

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Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#531

Post by tsimionescu »

absolutelastone wrote: post #378
Fomite wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That this is someone's fault and they can be punished is, I think, the reason people want it to be true. Rather than the world is a terrifying place that sometimes kills millions.

It sure seemed like a lot of people wanted the other theory to be true also though didn't it? I think the biggest driver for the lab leak arguments is backlash. Both theories would presumably have people that are culpable due to violating safety rules designed to prevent exactly what happened. But I suppose a lab screwing up is more embarrassing to China than a hick selling wild animals or whatever illegally.

Theoretically, a lab leak should be considered less embarrassing than a hick selling wild animals perfectly legally - wet markets that sell even wild animal meat are legal in China (and other places in the world) in spite of the known dangers of this practice. And people making a mistake while intentionally working with dangerous substances/organisms is also seen as more explicitly culpable than the more distributed blame of people allowing a known dangerous traditional practice to continue, wherein the participants are not aware that they are performing dangerous experiments.

But of course, there is considerable bias to view traditional practices like wet markets more favorably than modern practices like virology labs. So, in reality, the virus leaking from a virology lab would be found far more condemnable than the virus being contracted randomly at a wet market.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#533

Post by jeffreyq »

cyberax wrote: post #360
CMay wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest natural relative origin of SARS-CoV-2 was in Yunnan ~700 miles away from the market. The Wuhan lab collected samples from that area and the lab is only ~10 miles away from the market. Those wet markets are huge vectors for a viral spread, so a virus being spread there doesn't necessarily mean it started there. Why that market in Hubei and not first at a market closer to Yunnan? It might be more profitable…

> The closest The closest _known_. The second closest was found in Laos, also 700 miles from Wuhan (BANAL-52). Except it's in the other direction. So we know that close cousins of CoV-2 are pretty wide-spread. > Those wet markets are huge vectors for a viral spread, so a virus being spread there doesn't necessarily mean it started there The thing is, does it really matter? We can say with a high degree of confidence…

> We can say with a high degree of confidence that SARS-CoV-2 was _not_ engineered.

Do you have any links, articles, or further reading you could share to help me understand where the high degree of confidence comes from?

This guy seems to be convinced of the exact opposite conclusion that is is indeed engineered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d-eqdRSx7Y

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#534

Post by tsimionescu »

Glyptodon wrote: post #491
Digory wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It fits well with the Anglosphere’s concept of compensible negligence. China had a duty to run the lab safely, it breached that duty, and so China is responsible for the harms and losses caused by its negligence. Missouri actually filed suit against China, and it is set to go to trial next week. It will be interesting to watch. If Missouri were to get a judgement for all the costs created by the virus, it coul…

What I don't really get is why that concept doesn't apply to both the wet market and the lab leak scenarios.

Think about it this way: if a French tourist gets a severe toxinfection while eating in a seedy restaurant in some corner of the USA, would the French state, or even the family of the person, sue the US government for failing to enforce health codes / not having good enough health codes? Would you seriously imagine that trial happening and being successful?

Conversely, say the same person got equally badly sick while visiting a friend who works in a US government lab that researches and deals with live viruses. Wouldn't you feel the US government has a higher chance of losing a suit on this?

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#535

Post by tripletao »

lamontcg wrote: post #490
tripletao wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, not surprising that the lab was in a major city somewhat central and closer to the bats than e.g. Beijing. Because that is what it was set up to study. As we've discussed, the greatest abundance of related viruses occurred around Yunnan and Southeast Asia. Dr. Shi herself didn't expect spillover in Wuhan: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in W…

> As we've discussed, the greatest abundance of related viruses occurred around Yunnan and Southeast Asia. Dr. Shi herself didn't expect spillover in Wuhan: And SARS-CoV-1 occurred in Guangzhou. The closest known relative virus (WIV16) is 96% homologous to SARS-CoV-1 and was found in Yunnan as well, which is over 1,000 km away from Guangzhou. Either the range of the bats carrying these coronaviruses is much larger th…

I think the usual theory for SARS-1 is spillover from bats to other non-human animals outside Guangzhou. The virus was then brought to Guangzhou by wildlife traffickers, like in the live infected civet cats found in markets there. A similar conduit is possible for SARS-CoV-2, but we still haven't found that proximal host.

I don't think spillover of SARS-1 from bats in Guangzhou is commonly proposed. If you've seen it (and didn't just include that option for completeness), then I'd appreciate the reference.

I agree that unexpected things sometimes happen. Nobody expected spillover in Wuhan pre-pandemic though, and the WIV absolutely wasn't situated based on any such expectation.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#536

Post by petre »

jdietrich wrote: post #320

If we actually care about public health, we should act as if both the lab leak and zoonosis theories are correct. We should take laboratory biosecurity, wet markets, the bush meat trade and intensive livestock management equally seriously as threats. We should do this because we have no idea where the next pandemic - and there will be a next pandemic - will come from. It seems fairly clear to me that a lot of people…

> It seems fairly clear to me that a lot of people are much more concerned about finding someone to blame for the last pandemic than about preparing for or preventing the next pandemic.

That's why avian flu was allowed ro spread to cows in 16 states.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#537

Post by morepedantic »

cyberax wrote: post #413
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t find the actual order but a search turns up many articles about it. Here’s one: https://www.nature.com/articles/514411a

> The US government surprised many researchers on 17 October when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible. So it's not clear what the actual order entails and how temporary it was. And the whole advisory language ("asked scientists") seems to be kinda distinct from "banned". > The grants are all public and document gain of function resear…

>In general, these kinds of conspiracy theories just collapse when you start pulling the threads.

You think it's a conspiracy theory that Obama banned GoF research? OK, it was through an OSTP directive working with the NIH rather than an EO, but that's splitting hairs. It also wasn't banned, but only subject to a higher degree of scrutiny.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-d...

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#538

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

ricksunny wrote: post #417
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demonization of the Ecohealth Alliance is one of the more depressing aspects of the response to the pandemic. EHA has been warning for decades that a coronavirus pandemic is likely, and that governments should be taking steps to prepare for it and to make it less likely. Then, they're proved right, but instead of society thanking them, they're subject to a politically motivated witch hunt, with the aim of distrac…

Fun fact: Ecohealth terminated Daszak's job as CEO in the first week of this year https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1880465349373751438?t=oBbkfRZ...

There's nothing fun about that. They've been pressured into taking this step.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#539

Post by knorker »

Obviously I don't know either way. But remember when saying "lab leak" god you banned from social media?

I don't think anybody ever explained why exactly it was "racist" to think that labs can leak in China just like has happened many times all around the world, but wet market theory and the dangers of the Chinese food customs is "not racist".

Does anybody know? There were many people online who more than went along with this. Why was it not the other way around?

Organisations I understand, they have whatever hidden motives. But normal people in the "lab leak theory is racist" mob, they never explained why it wasn't "wet market theory is racist" instead.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#540

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

shakow wrote: post #236
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple zoonosis events is actually exactly what you expect from natural spillover. If the virus is spreading in farmed animals, it will have many chances to spill over into humans. In fact, this is exactly what happened with the original SARS in 2002. It's striking how similar the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is to the original SARS outbreak. Almost every detail of the spillover is identical: unknown coronavirus emerges at…

But SARS outbreak was from a single strain, wasn't it? It's not the “two zoonosis” that I find to be low-probability, it's the “two zoonosis of two different strains at the same place & time”.

The SARS outbreak was from many zoonosis events of slightly different strains, over the course of months.

The standard zoonosis theory here predicts that multiple spillover events are likely, because there's a population of infected animals that is in close contact with humans.

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